The growing phenomenon of highly valued startups (e.g., unicorns) poses fundamental questions for entrepreneurship research. We posit that venture scalability and VC funding availability may explain startups' IPO valuations (and timing). Highly scalable ventures may not only capture very large market opportunities, but their scaling strategies may also be constrained by the governance and regulatory burdens faced by public firms. Accordingly, we hypothesize and find that more scalable ventures undertake IPOs at higher valuations, which is positively moderated by VC funding availability. Highly scalable startups also delay their IPOs for longer but only when VC funding availability is high.

高价值初创企业（例如独角兽）的日益增长给创业研究提出了基本问题。我们认为风险投资的可扩展性和风险投资的可用性可以解释初创公司的 IPO 估值（和时机）。高度可扩展的企业不仅可能抓住巨大的市场机会，而且其扩展策略也可能受到上市公司面临的治理和监管负担的限制。因此，我们假设并发现，规模更大的企业会以更高的估值进行首次公开​​募股，这受到风险投资资金可用性的积极调节。高度可扩展的初创公司也会将首次公开募股推迟更长时间，但前提是风险投资资金可用性很高。